Nikon officially announces the long-rumored D3X SLR

Though long-rumored and even scooped by its own Nikon Pro magazine, Nikon has …

The digital SLR wars continue to heat up. This year Nikon pulled a major coup d'etat on Canon with the release of the full-frame, ISO 25,600-equivalent D3, and its DX-format cousin, the D300. Those cameras, though, clocked in at a "mere" 12 megapixels. Nikon has aimed squarely for Canon's flagship EOS 1-Ds Mark III with its newly announced D3X SLR.

The Nikon D3X takes the current, rugged D3 body and stuffs a memory card- and hard drive-busting 24.5 megapixel, FX-format CMOS sensor inside. The doubling of pixels does come with some tradeoffs, however. Maximum ISO sensitivity is reduced to 6400, and the maximum frames per second for full-resolution drops from nine to five. However, popping on a DX-format lens will crank out 10.5 megapixel images at 7fps. The camera also offers a 5:4 crop mode, which allows photographers to frame images perfectly for the common 8x10 and 16x20 portrait sizes.

The D3X still retains the excellent 51-point autofocus system, 3D Focus Tracking, LiveView shooting, and Scene Recognition System for enhanced exposure. As you can well imagine, all these pro features come with an equally pro price: a budget-busting $8,000. Though, if you have the need for such high resolution, you likely have the business to justify the cost. With Canon's EOS 5D Mark II, Sony's α-900, and interesting new models from Leica and RED, it looks as though the D3X is another in a long line of increased innovation to come.